George Washington University says it will ban a student commencement speaker from campus after she used her graduation speech to decry “genocide” in Gaza and urged her graduating class not to donate to the school until it agrees to divest from Israel.
Pro-Israel students and alumni had urged the school to discipline the speaker and a dean who thanked her for “sharing your words and your views.” The dean’s profile no longer appears on GWU’s website.
It is at least the second prestigious university this season to take disciplinary action against a student commencement speaker for remarks related to Israel. New York University said it would withhold the diploma of a speaker there who denounced “genocide” and “atrocities currently happening in Palestine” in his speech last week.
GWU apologized and announced an investigation after Cecilia Culver made the comments while addressing the school’s liberal arts college on Saturday.
The next day, the school announced the penalty, saying Culver’s conduct “was inappropriate and dishonest” because she had delivered a different speech from the one she had submitted.
The statement added that Culver “has been barred from all GW’s campuses and sponsored events elsewhere,” and that it was continuing to conduct “a thorough review” with potential additional “accountability actions” to follow.
Culver had to take frequent breaks for the sustained applause she received during her speech, delivered at GWU’s largest graduation ceremony.
“For over a year, we have watched a genocide be committed against Palestinians,” she said, adding, “I cannot celebrate my own graduation without a heavy heart, knowing how many students in Palestine have been forced to stop their studies, expelled from their homes, and killed for simply remaining in the country of their ancestors.”
She continued, “I am ashamed that my own tuition is being used to fund genocide. I’m going to say that again. I am ashamed to know that my own tuition is being used to fund this genocide.”
Noting that GWU students, faculty, and staff have pressed the school to “divest from the apartheid state of Israel,” Culver continued, “The administration has refused to negotiate in good faith.”
She continued, “Instead, our money is put into the pockets of those who unequivocally prove, time and time again, they do not care about the students and faculty that create this university.” It was unclear who Culver was referring to.
Culver also made a call for her fellow graduating class “to withhold donations and continue advocating for disclosure and divestment,” concluding, “None of us are free until Palestine is free.”
Following the conclusion of her speech, one of the college’s deans, Kavita Daiya, remarked, “We represent a variety of views, and we thank you for sharing your words and your views.”
Letter called for school to rescind Culver’s diploma
Culver’s speech, and Daiya’s acknowledgement of it, touched off a protest letter purportedly signed by more than 700 GWU students, parents, and alums urging the school to rescind Culver’s diploma and force Daiya to apologize.
The letter-writers, whose organizers include the ardently pro-Israel groups Jews In School, Students Supporting Israel and Israel War Room, said they believed the speech was “filled with demonstrably fabricated accusations of genocide and apartheid directed at Israel” and that the dean’s comments amounted to “a dereliction of duties to return the celebration to neutrality.”
“This was not merely a disruption — it was a targeted, ideologically charged tirade that desecrated what should have been a unifying academic celebration,” stated the letter, which purported to speak for “the Jewish and Israeli community.” More than one-quarter of GWU’s student body is estimated to be Jewish, according to Hillel International.
Letter organizer Sabrina Soffer, a recent GWU Judaic Studies graduate who spoke at the November 2023 March for Israel in Washington, DC, said on Instagram that Culver’s speech was “filled with antisemitic commentary” and that Daiya had given an “implicit endorsement of those remarks.” Soffer’s Instagram post did not list the names of the letter’s signatories but claimed hundreds had signed.
GWU’s student newspaper noted that Daiya’s profiles have since been scrubbed from the university’s websites and directory. Her LinkedIn page is also disabled. Asked for comment on Daiya, a university spokesperson directed JTA to its statement on Culver, which does not mention the dean.
According to GWU’s own communications, during Culver’s time at the school, the economics and statistics dual major was a recipient of a prestigious award and received an award from the Federal Reserve as part of an internship she completed.
“Cecilia is in every way a distinguished scholar,” the school noted.
Her actions and the university’s response stood out at the tail end of an academic year that had seen notably more muted campus Israel protests than the previous year amid the Trump administration’s curtailing of federal funding for higher education and rounding up of student protesters. Fearing harsh punishments, many schools have taken more aggressive measures to curtail activism, while others, including Harvard University, have gone on the offensive against the administration.
Campus activism has persisted
Still, some campus activism has persisted, including in the Mid-Atlantic region where GWU is located. Police in recent days have broken up pro-Palestinian encampments at both Johns Hopkins University and Virginia Commonwealth University, and in some cases, the schools have temporarily withheld diplomas from participants. Other schools, including Swarthmore College, have also seen encampments broken up and students arrested this month.
GWU has also been one of the most intense schools for pro-Palestinian activism since the period immediately after Oct. 7, when activists projected messages including “Glory To Our Martyrs” onto the side of a campus building. Last year the school suspended its chapter of the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace.
